From fire-breathing dragons to the phoenix that rises from the ashes and mermaids who lure sailors to their doom, stories abound of mythical creatures with extraordinary powers. While some of these have obvious connections with real animals and birds, others must be figments of the human imagination – though no less fascinating for that, as the continuing search for the Loch Ness monster undoubtedly proves. Perhaps we should all beware of attacks by such infamous creatures as the boggart and the bug-a-boo.
Mythology abounds with curious hybrids, like the monstrous Harpies and Gorgons, with human bodies and birds' wings. The lustful satyrs, with goats' legs but human faces, and the lascivious centaurs, which had horses' bodies, attending the god Dionysus. One look from a snake-headed Gorgon could turn a man to stone. Much more benign are the hippocampus, with a horse's head and the body of a fish, which pulled Poseidon's chariot, and the elephant-headed but one-tusked Ganesha, the Hindu god of prosperity.
Some animals and plants are thought to be people in disguise. These include werewolves – humans transformed into ravening wild animals – and vampires, the living dead who assume the form of bats. In myth, such magical transformations were often made as punishments from the gods or as ruses to confuse an enemy. Even plants like the cypress and narcissus are said to have once had a human identity, and who could resist the allure of a flower fairy?
Many legends tell of creatures – half woman, half fish – that inhabit the seas. It is widely believed to be unlucky to see one – and even worse to kill one. They are said to be able to predict storms. Grasping the belt or cap of a mermaid will give a mortal power over her.
In Irish lore, mermaids are called merrows. They are old, pagan women who foretell bad weather, banished from the earth by St Patrick. It is said that the coastal region of Machaire is inhabited by people descended from the union of a man and a mermaid.
True life' mermaids are probably dugongs or manatees, rare marine mammals with heads that somewhat resemble humans in profile and fish-shaped tails. While suckling their single young the females cradle the babies to their breasts with one flipper, in the manner of human mothers.
Mermaids, so it is said, live beneath the sea in a land of riches and splendour. From here they lure seafarers to their deaths, then gather up the souls of the dead and keep them in cages. 'The Mermaid', one of a collection of traditional songs assembled by FrancisJames Child in the 19th century, relates how:
'Twas Friday morn when we set sail,
And we had not got far from land,
When the Captain, he spied a lovely mermaid,
With a comb and a glass in her hand.
In the final verse the ballad tells of the disaster that befalls following the sighting:
Then three times 'round went our gallant ship,
And three times 'round went she,
And the third time that she went 'round
She sank to the bottom of the sea.
In Hans Christian Andersen's tale, 'The Little Mermaid', the sea creature falls in love with a prince in a passing ship. In order to be with him, she asks a sea witch to give her human form but has to pay for it with her tongue and is doomed to perpetual silence. Although she waits on him assiduously, he marries a 'true' human. Her heart is broken. Though she is given the chance to regain her mermaid's tail by killing the prince, she kills herself instead and joins the 'daughters of the air', spirits destined to wait 300 years for immortality.
Many plants have links with fairies, but the grassy green 'fairy rings' of damp autumnal lawns and fields are especially associated with them.
The fairies' tree: Fairies were believed to meet under a single hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), called a lone or fairy thorn. Such trees were to be avoided at all costs. Both fairies and witches were thought to be especially active on May Day, of which hawthorn or May blossom is the emblem.
The Flower Fairies, a series of books illustrated with charming portraits of children dressed in floral or leafy garb, each with an accompanying botanical poem, were the work of the English artist Cicely Mary Barker, born in 1895. Still hugely popular worldwide, their number includes the Crocus Fairies, 'Each with a flame in its shining cup' who dance for joy '… and sing/The song of the coming again of Spring.'
Fairy rings (circles of rich, deep green grass that are in fact produced by the activity of fungi spreading outward and releasing nutrients in the soil) are special places that humans interfere with at their peril. Said to be fairies' dancing places, it is deemed unwise to step inside them. In some places it is believed that, with the help of the fairies, treasure has been buried in the centre of the ring.
Ragwort (Senecio squalidus), a plant fatal to horses if they eat it, was thought to be a plant on which fairies rode around the world doing mischief. To stop them entering a byre – and harming cattle – holy pearlwort (Sagina procumbens) was placed over the door. This is said to be the first plant Jesus stepped on when he rose from the dead. The same plant was placed below the right knee of a woman while she was in labour to keep the fairies away from her when she and her baby were at their most vulnerable.
The ancient symbol of the sun (which reappeared each morning) and later of the Resurrection, the phoenix is a bird whose legend has been hugely embellished over the centuries.
The phoenix legend may have arisen from the vulture's habit of taking and flying off with burning pieces of flesh from funeral pyres.
The phoenix was the badge of Jane Seymour, the beloved third wife of Henry VIII. It was also a favourite device of Queen Elizabeth I because it symbolized sacrifice and renewal.
According to a well-known version of its myth, the phoenix, said to live for 500 years, is a male bird with beautiful plumage that lives in Arabia. At the end of its life cycle it builds itself a nest of cassia and frankincense twigs, on which it sits to sing a song of rare beauty. The nest is then set on fire by the sun's rays. Both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes. Out of the ashes of the dead phoenix crawls a worm, and from this a new, young phoenix arises. The new phoenix embalms the ashes of the old one in an egg made of myrrh, which it takes to Heliopolis (the Egyptian city of the sun) where it buries the parent bird in the temple before returning to Arabia.
The Roman naturalist Pliny described the phoenix as being '… as big as an eagle, in colour yellow, and bright as gold, namely all about the neck, the rest of the body a deep red purple; the tail azure blue, intermingled with feathers among of rose carnation colour …'
A Persian creature similar to the phoenix is the fabulous Simurgh (see page 242). According to one legend it lives for up to 1700 years, and when the young bird hatches the parent of the opposite sex burns itself to death.
Among the most fearsome creatures of mythology are those with bird-like wings, including the ghastly Harpies and the Gorgons. Their evil powers, especially their calls, were able to wreck the lives of humans.
The head of Medusa is an ancient icon used on shields and breastplates to protect warriors against slaughter.
The Harpies were monsters with the heads of women but the claws and wings of eagles or vultures, and were loathsome to behold. Personifications of the storm winds, they were robbers, who carried people off to be tormented in the underworld. Their names forcefully reflect the strength of their malign influence: Aello means 'storm'; Celaeno 'blackness' and Ocypete 'rapid'. They were portrayed on Greek monuments as symbols of death.
The word 'harpy' is now used of a greedy, predatory woman, while a gorgon is a woman renowned for the strength of her temper.
Notorious for their hair of living serpents, the three hideous Gorgons were endowed with golden wings and bronze claws. Just one look from them could turn an unfortunate human to stone. The Greek poet Hesiod includes in their number the queen Medusa, the only mortal of the trio. In legend, Medusa met her end when her head was struck off by the hero Perseus, who avoided her lethal gaze by using the polished shield of Athene as a mirror to look at her as he wielded his sword. Afterwards, Athene set the head with its writhing snakes in the centre of her shield.
Though their existence – and their identity – is disputed, sightings of sea serpents have been regularly reported since ancient times, and they have been held responsible for the fatal wrecking of ships.
No creature consistent with descriptions of a sea serpent has ever been washed ashore. Decaying remains of basking sharks have been put forward as possibilities, but the mystery remains. Perhaps, some speculate, this is because the sea serpent confines itself to deep water. Whether it is a relation of the giant squid (or the Kraken) or an eel, shark or turtle, is yet to be determined.
'Among fishermen with long experience,' said Aristotle, 'some claim to have to have seen in the sea animals like beams of wood, black, round and the same thickness throughout.' To others they appeared to have flowing manes like horses; yet others noticed long heads and scaly skins like those of crocodiles.
One vivid report of an undulating, snake-like creature seen off Gloucester Bay, Massachusetts, in 1817 reads: 'We counted twenty bunches [humps] … His head was of a dark brown colour, formed like a seal's and shined with a glossy appearance … his head was large as a barrel for we could see it when he was about four miles from us.'
As well as more than 400 seemingly bona fide sightings there have been many hoaxes. These include the 1871 description of a beast with '… an enormous fan-shaped tail … overlapping scales [which] … open and shut with every arch of his sinuous back coloured like a rainbow …'
SEA SERPENT TRAITS
Features consistently reported down the years include:
• Many small humps along the back.
• Several big coils visible above the water.
• A mane on the neck.
• Prominent eyes.
• A long neck and small head.
• Many fins.
On hot days, so Norwegian sailors of the 16th century reported, the sea would turn murky and the monstrous Kraken would emerge. When it sank again, it created a great whirlpool that could pull the largest ship to its doom.
The bonus of this risky situation for the fishermen was that the appearance of the Kraken coincided with an abundance of fish. What also happened was that the sea suddenly decreased in depth – a signal they took to mean that the animal was about to surface. This recalls the phenomenon of the 'deep scattering layer' of myriad small squid, which causes echo-sounders to give false readings. And the Kraken itself was almost certainly a
In his 1953 sci-fi novel The Kraken Wakes, John Wyndham tells the story of a world in which the seas are occupied by a foreign life form that has arrived from outer space in an attempt to take over the earth. Its American title was Out of the Deeps.
giant squid. First described by Erik Pontoppidan in his 1752 History of Norway, the Kraken lives on in Norwegian legend. A bishop was even said to have celebrated a mass on its back, taking it to be an island. In his Juvenilia, published when he was 21, Tennyson included a poem dedicated to this sea monster.
Below the thunders of the upper deep,
Far, far beneath the abysmal sea,
His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep
The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee
About his shadowy sides; above him swell
Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;
And far away into the sickly light,
From many a wondrous grot and secret cell
Unnumber'd and enormous polypi
Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.
There he hath lain for ages, and will lie
Battening upon huge sea-worms in his sleep,
Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;
Then once by man and angels to be seen,
In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.
Most famed of all the unidentified water dwellers is Scotland's Loch Ness Monster. The subject of media hype and hoaxes, as well as serious scientific investigation, 'Nessie's' true identity remains a mystery.
Reports of a creature in Loch Ness go back at least 1500 years. St Adomnan's medieval Life of St Columba tells how, in 565 CE, Columba, by raising his voice to the creature, saved the life of a Pict who was being attacked by it in the river Ness. On 2 May 1933, the Inverness Courier (whose editor dubbed the creature 'a monster') ran the story of Mr and Mrs John Mackay, who had seen 'an enormous animal rolling and plunging' on the surface of Loch Ness. In the media frenzy that ensued, a circus offered a reward of £20,000 for the monster's capture.
Reports of Nessie have continued to flow ever since this incident. In March 1994, however, it came to light that one Marmaduke Wetherell had faked the famous photograph of a long-necked creature that was attributed to surgeon RK Wilson in 1934. In another hoax, the ornithologist Sir Peter Scott named the creature Nessiteras rhombopteryx after seeing a blurred underwater photograph taken in the early 1970s by a group led by the American lawyer Robert Rines. The name is an anagram of 'monster hoax by Sir Peter S'.
Various theories have been proposed for the monster's identity. These include a prehistoric plesiosaur and the species of sturgeon that has been found in streams close to Loch Ness. Another theory is that the 'humps' are in fact disruptions of the water caused by minor volcanic activity at the bottom of the Loch.
THE CULT OF NESSIE
The Loch Ness Monster has appeared in many fictional – often bizarre – contexts.
Doctor Who – In the 1975 series, it is an alien cyborg controlled by extraterrestrial Zygons.
The Simpsons – In episode 224, 'Monty Can't Buy Me Love', Mr Burns, Homer and others drain the loch, capture the monster and take it back to the USA. Mr Burns gives it a job in a casino.
Freddie as FR07 – Jon Acevski's 1992 animated parody of the Bond films, in which Scottie the monster befriends an enchanted frog prince, and together they defeat an enemy wreaking revenge on the world by shrinking landmarks all over London.
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes – Billy Wilder's 1970 classic in which Holmes encounters the monster while investigating a secret society who are developing a submarine in the Loch.
Among the weird inhabitants of the water are horse-like creatures with mystical powers that may get up to mischief.
Hippocampus is the generic name of the sea horse, an oddity of the fish world, which has a horse-like head and swims upright. It is also peculiar in that the male 'gives birth' to the young. When the fish mate the female lays her eggs in the 'brood pouch' on his belly. Because it looks rather like a sea horse, an area of the brain is named the hippocampus. Lying in the 'primitive', unconscious part of the brain, it is involved with the processing of memories.
The chariot of the Greek sea god Poseidon was pulled by a hippocampus, whose name comes from hippos, a horse, and kampos, a sea monster. It had a horse's head and upper body and hind parts like a fish or dolphin. As Poseidon rode through the waters the waves opened ahead of him so that his chariot did not get wet and sea monsters swam up from the depths to pay him homage.
By contrast, mischief-making was the penchant of the Kelpie, a water-horse of Gaelic folklore similar to the Icelandic Nykur. This creature, with backward pointing hooves, could change its shape at will. It led men astray by enticing them to ride it across a river, then plunged into the water and drowned them. Disaster was most likely to strike if the rider mentioned Christ's name.
Some of the world's most elusive creatures – if they exist at all – are known only from the footprints they are alleged to leave. These have given rise to legends such as those of Bigfoot and the Jersey Devil.
Bigfoot, a huge ape-like creature believed to tramp across various parts of north-western USA and western Canada, was 'discovered' in 1811 by the British explorer David Thompson. Its footprints have supposedly been measured at 2ft (60cm) long and 8in (20cm) wide. Despite a convincing film made in 1967, its existence is yet to be confirmed.
The Chupacabra, an alleged predator of South America whose name is Spanish for 'goat sucker', is said to drink the blood of various farm animals, leaving their corpses in the fields with incision wounds on their necks. Some people claim to have seen the creature in remote areas, and it is often described as having 'spines' down its back.
The Yeti, also dubbed 'the Abominable Snowman', roams (if it does exist) the Himalayas where, to the Nepalese, it is significant as a spiritual rather than an actual physical entity. Said to be ape-like, 10ft (3m) tall, with feet twice the size of a man's, its footprints are believed to range over vast tracts of open snow. In reality, these may well be the prints of human boots enlarged by the melting of the snow.
The study and research of new and undiscovered species of animals is known as cryptozoology.
In 1735, a Mrs Leeds in New Jersey was said to have given birth to a cursed child (her 13th) with a horse's head and hooves, wings and a snake's tail. During the 19th century this being was seen from time to time, but over a five-day period in January 1909 over 100 people reported sightings. As well as hoof prints in the snow, there were accounts of the Jersey Devil flying over towns and attacking domestic animals.
By flapping its wings it caused thunderclaps to roar. As it blinked, lightning flashed in the sky. So runs the story of the gigantic thunderbird of North American Indian folklore.
Thunderbirds, first aired in 1965, was a children's action-adventure TV show set in the 2020s. Made by Sylvia and Gerry Anderson, it used a new form of puppetry they called 'Supermarionation'. The show's title came from a letter written to his family by Gerry Anderson's older brother during World War II, while he was serving on an American airbase called 'Thunderbird Field'.
There is more. The bird's hollow back was said to hold a reservoir of water that could be released as a deluge of rain. It was so strong that it could carry a whale in its claws, killed with arrows fired from its wings. The bones of the whale were left on the mountain tops. Some tribes believe that trees destroyed in storms have been ripped open by the thunderbird's claws to extract the huge grubs that are its favourite food.
In some American tales, thunder is the rattle of a black rattlesnake, which carries a supernatural creature on its back. For others it is the sound of a great bat's wing.
As well as influencing the weather, in the mythology of Plains and Woodlands Indians the thunderbird wages constant warfare with underwater creatures, especially horned snakes. Northwest Indians, who depict the thunderbird on their tepees, are among those for whom the images are a means of warding off the attentions of evil spirits.
In their attempt to explain violent natural events such as earthquakes, the ancients held all kinds of creatures to be responsible, from fish to serpents.
When he shakes one of his thousand heads, so Hindu myth relates, Sesha, the world serpent, makes earthquakes occur. His power comes from the fact that he supports the earth, and he is also said to destroy it with fire every 1000 years. Traditionally represented dressed in purple and holding a plough and a pestle, he acts as the resting place for Vishnu, the solar deity. In Japanese tradition, Jinshin Uwo, the earthquake fish, is the creature upon which the islands of Japan float. As the creature lashes its tail, it causes the tremors that characterize earthquakes.
The time of day at which an earthquake occurs can add to the woes it may bring, and affect the weather, as this old rhyme relates: 'These are things An earthquake brings: At nine of the bell They sickness foretell; At five and seven they betoken rain; At four the sky is cleared thereby; At six and eight comes wind again.'
According to the Dahomey of West Africa, the rainbow serpent Aido Hwedo helped to create the universe by transporting the god Mawu through the cosmos. Aido Hwedo also created the mountains, which were said to be his excrement. However, the earth became far too heavy, so the god ordered the serpent to coil beneath the world to hold it up. Because Aido Hwedo could not bear the heat, Mawu created the sea to surround and cool him. If he gets uncomfortable and shifts his position, earthquakes occur. In order to remain strong, Aido Hwedo needs to consume a large number of iron bars. When the supply of these runs out, it is said, Aido Hwedo will eat his own tail, making the world fall into the sea.
When Mount Etna erupts, shooting fire into the Sicilian sky, the monster Typhon is at work. Other creatures have also been believed since ancient times to be the mighty forces responsible for nature's rage.
The giant Typhon, hybrid of man and beast and taller than any mountain, was endowed with a coiled viper's tail, wings and feathers. The offspring of the earth goddess Gaia, his most fearsome feature was his 100 dragon heads, with their dark tongues, fiery eyes and thunderous voices.
In collusion with the rain god, Tlaloc the sky serpent, so ancient Aztecs believed, created storms, ejecting rain from his enormous belly, which contained all the waters of the heavens.
Alcyoneus, a huge ass whose name means 'the brayer', was supposedly a manifestation of the Mediterranean wind, the Sirocco. This destructive monster was one of the Gigantes, a race of giants.
Greek legend relates that as soon as Typhon had emerged from the cave in which he was born he was attacked by Zeus with a hail of thunderbolts. But instead of hiding himself away, Typhon attacked the king of the gods, leaving him helpless on the ground – minus the sinews in his limbs. Zeus, however, had his revenge. With his sinews restored he finally conquered Typhon by tearing off a piece of Italy and using it to crush the monster. Typhon's breath (he lives on because he is immortal) is the evidence of his presence, still erupting from Mount Etna.
The typhoon or tropical cyclone – formed by colliding masses of air – gets its name not only from the Greek tuphon, meaning whirlwind, but also from the Chinese tai fung meaning 'great wind'.
Werewolves – humans able to turn themselves at will into ravening wild animals – have been feared since real wolves roamed at large among our ancestors' habitations. These embodiments of evil are based on the concept of the 'the beast within'.
Influenced by the mysterious process known as lycanthropy, witches, sorcerers and others with evil powers were believed able to turn themselves into wolves. (The term 'werewolf' comes from the Old English word wer, meaning man.) The 19th-century author Emma Phipson vividly conjures their menace: 'Human beings when under this delusion,' she says, 'roamed through forests and desert places actuated by the same passions as the wild beasts whose name they bore. They howled, walked on all fours, tore up graves in search of prey, attacked unarmed passengers, devoured children, and committed the wildest excesses.'
In the 2005 movie hit from animator Nick Park, Wallace and Gromit go on the trail of a were-rabbit, which is eating prize-winning vegetables.
Where fear of werewolves took hold it could cause panic in entire communities. It is reported that in 1600, in the Jura mountains between France and Switzerland, lycanthropy was so rife that men and women gathered themselves into packs and roamed the country. And in France, the loup-garou is still an object of terror. No weapon is effective against a werewolf unless, some believe, it has been blessed in a chapel dedicated to St Hubert, the patron saint of hunters (see page 52).
Apart from wolves, other 'were' creatures are known in various parts of the world. In South America, for instance, there is a persistent belief in were-jaguars.
The concept of the werewolf resonates strongly in legends surrounding Lycaon, the mythical ruler of Arcadia. In the most common, related by Ovid, Lycaon was turned into a wolf because he angered Zeus by serving him a 'hash of human flesh' when the god visited Lycaon's court in the guise of a simple traveller; this was a child sacrifice, possibly of Lycaon's own son. This gave rise to the story that a man was turned into a wolf at each annual sacrifice to Zeus, but recovered his human form if he abstained from human flesh for ten years.
Though anyone who sucks blood is called a vampire, in the natural world it is vampire bats that have the most bloodthirsty reputation. But most fearsome are the 'living dead' – the vampires who, often in bat form, attack unwary innocents.
A force for good: the American Stroke Association has reported the success of a drug made from the saliva of the vampire bat in busting the clots that lodge in the brain and cause strokes.
Of all supernatural monsters the vampire is among the best known. Traditionally, his eyes gleam red, his breath is foul, his fingernails pointed and he has hairs on the palms of his hands. Some are said to have only a single nostril. Returning from the grave, complete with bats' wings, the vampire is said to turn his victim into yet another such horror with his bite.
The idea existed in legend long before Bram Stoker crystallized it into Dracula, taking the monster's name from dracul, the Romanian word for 'devil'. Where vampire activity was believed to be rife, it was customary to take a white stallion that had never been to stud – and never stumbled – into a graveyard. Any graves that the horse refused to walk over were those of vampires.
AGAINST A VAMPIRE
To defend yourself against a vampire it is said that you should:
• Wear a silver amulet, or carry any silver object in your pocket.
• Wear garlic flowers around your neck or place them in the window – vampires hate their smell.
• Carry or wear a crucifix – the symbol of Christ will neutralize the evil. And to destroy a vampire …
• Drive a stake through its heart.
• Or shoot it with a silver bullet, ideally made from a crucifix that has been melted down.
Toads are feared as witches or evil men in animal form, although 'toad-magic' is also an old means of destroying witches' powers.
At the trial of the Bury St Edmunds witches in 1665, a Dr Jacob declared that he had found a toad in the bed of a child named Amy Duny. After he had thrown the creature in the fire, Amy developed burns on her arms – a sure sign of a witch acting in disguise.
The natural reaction of a toad, when alarmed, to exude various poisonous irritants is undoubtedly significant to its links with witchcraft.
Toadmen, able to make the most unruly horse stand still, were recorded in England. To acquire such powers a man had to skin a toad or peg it to an anthill until the insects had stripped its bones clean. He then had to carry the bones in his pocket until they were dry and, at midnight under a full moon, float them on a stream. The bones would screech and one would detach itself and head upstream. Catching this 'rogue' bone bestowed a toadman's powers.
ANTI-WITCH TREATMENT
Toads were used in this charm to rob a witch of her evil attributes, and prevent her from influencing your life.
1 Take three small-necked jars.
2 Place in each a toad's heart studded with thorns and a frog's liver into which new pins have been inserted.
3 Cork the jars and bury them in three different churchyards, 7in (17.5cm) below the surface and 7ft (2.1m) from the church porch.
4 During each burial, say the Lord's Prayer backwards.
A small serpent with a deadly glance, the basilisk or cockatrice also had venomous breath. Humans, animals, birds and plants were all prey to its deadly habits.
The mirror was the perfect protection and weapon against a basilisk. If seen in a mirror, rather than in the flesh, it became harmless. And if it looked at its own reflection it died of terror.
Even if it had no intent to kill, just one look from the basilisk could be fatal. Because it slew everything in sight, this fabulous creature was believed to live in a desert of its own creation. It had, according to the Roman naturalist Pliny, a whitish, crown-like marking on its head, which led to its being dubbed the 'king of all serpents'. Most accounts agree that it had the head and body of a cockerel and a serpent's tail, though the horrible aspects of its appearance were embroidered over the centuries so that by the Middle Ages it had become a four-legged cock with a crown on its head, yellow feathers, thorny wings and a serpent's tail armed with either a hook or another cock's head.
Real basilisks are lizards native to South America. Because they can run across the surface of water they are also known as Jesus lizards.
It was widely believed that basilisks hatched from cockerel's eggs, ideally laid in dunghills or amidst poisonous materials of some kind, and incubated by a toad or a serpent. When such tales were beginning to be challenged by science, the Spanish satirist and poet Quevedo, in his romance The Basilisk, wrote of this creature: 'If the man who saw you is still alive, your whole story is a lie, since if he has not died he cannot have seen you, and if he has died, he cannot tell what he saw.'
On land and sea – and in the underworld – huge creatures lie in wait to do damage to the sinful and unwary. So mythology relates, and the theme has been adopted in modern times, notably in such classic movies as King Kong.
The eponymous screen giant King Kong, star of the 1933 movie (and various remakes since, the latest in 2005), is an altogether more touching creature. When brought to New York as a circus attraction from Skull Island in the Indian Ocean, he runs amok and climbs the Empire State building, gently carrying the young woman he loves. His pathetic end comes when fighter planes gun him down.
'Giants' can take many forms. Ethiopian ants as large as dogs were described by the Latin scholar Solinus as being particularly skilled in digging for gold. Any human who tried to steal from their precious hoard was devoured on sight. Similar creatures were also reputed to exist in India.
When they cast their spells, the cabalists, practitioners of the ancient secret lore, deem as most powerful the one used to summon up Leviathan, the great fish. This fearsome beast, a monster of the deep, is described in the Book of Job: 'Out of his mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out … He maketh the deep [sea] boil like a pot.' So evil is the beast that only on the Day of Judgment will he meet his end when 'his flesh will be food for the righteous'.
Guarding the Egyptian underworld was Ammut, part hippopotamus and part lion, with the jaws of a crocodile. Specifically stationed next to the scales of judgment in the hall of Osiris (the king and judge of the dead) she ate the hearts of those who were burdened with sin. Her role was similar to that of the Greek Cerberus, the three-headed dog who guarded the gates of Hades.
Known throughout Middle America, the serpent god Quetzalcoatl (whose name means 'green feather snake') was originally the god of the air and wind but was also a divine creator and the ruler of the ancient Toltec people.
The plumes on the head of Quetzalcoatl are those of the quetzal bird, a creature still celebrated in Mexican festival dances. Dressed in sumptuous feathered costumes, the dancers, called quetzales, perform a set of ritual steps that scholars think is a tribute to the life-giving powers of the sun.
Quetzalcoatl is, at once, heaven and earth, light and darkness, life and death. As a creator god he travelled to Mictlan, the underworld, retrieved some bones and sprinkled them with his blood, bringing human life into being. He was also a teacher, showing people how to farm and weave cotton and also how to make calendars and interpret the movements of the stars.
The resplendent quetzal (Pharomachrus mocinno) is a spectacular resident of the forests to the east of the Bolivian Andes, its red front contrasting starkly with its metallic green back, white undertail and long shimmering green tail feathers. To the ancient Maya the quetzal symbolized freedom – because a quetzal will die in captivity – and wealth, because quetzal feathers were, with jade, the Maya traders' most sought-after treasures.
According to Toltec myth, a pale skinned god-king named Quetzalcoatl was sent into exile by the dark god Tezcatlipoca ('smoking mirror'), and crossed the Gulf of Mexico on a raft of snakes, vowing to return. When, in 1519 (considered an auspicious year by the Aztecs, who claimed descent from the Toltecs) the Spanish adventurer Hernán Cortés – a pale-skinned European – arrived on the coast of Mexico he was believed to be the returning god. As a result, the Aztec emperor Montezuma received Cortés graciously, but was captured and killed during the Spanish conquest of the Aztec capital.
This is the folklorists' title for a collection of outlandish mythical creatures, many with wonderful names like Giddyfish and Teakettlers, that it is supposedly possible to encounter in the American backwoods.
The tradition of studying fabulous beasts goes back to Pliny's 'unnatural natural history' and to such books as the Physiologus, a collection of moralized beast tales that was one of the most popular books of the Middle Ages. It was probably first produced in Alexandria in the 3rd or 4th century.
The lumberjacks and frontiersmen of old amused themselves by telling tall stories concerning bizarre creatures. Typical was the Hoop Snake, 'invented' in the 19th century, which put its tail in its mouth and bowled over the ground at a rate of knots. The only way a person could escape it was to jump through the hoop, which made the serpent so confused that it was unable to turn back.
BIZARRE ZOOLOGY
Some of the more outrageous fearsome critters:
Giddyfish – Fish with elastic bodies. In winter, when one emerged from a hole in the ice it had to be hit on the head with a paddle. This made it bounce up and down; then all the others would do the same and jettison themselves on to land.
Rumptifusel – A furry but belligerent creature that slept wrapped around a tree trunk. Lumberjacks mistaking it for a fur coat were attacked and killed.
Gillygaloo – A bird that laid cuboid eggs because it nested on hills. When hard-boiled, they could be used as dice.
Teakettler – A small animal that walked backwards while ejecting clouds of steam from its nostrils and making a noise like a boiling kettle.
Goofus – A bird that flew backwards because it was interested only in places it had already visited. It also built its nest upside down.
Squonk – An unhappy, shy creature with skin covered in warts and moles that could be tracked by the trail of tears it left as it moved. If frightened, its body dissolved, leaving only a puddle.
Of all legendary beasts, the unicorn is among the most famous, and appears on the royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom. It is widely regarded as a symbol of purity, and as such is associated with the Virgin Mary.
Because of its meekness, the unicorn was believed, in medieval times, to be the animal that would inherit the earth, a reference to the words of the Bible.
'The fiercest animal,' wrote Pliny, 'is the unicorn, which in the rest of the body resembles a horse, but in the head a stag, in the feet an elephant, and in the tail a boar, and has a deep bellow, and a single black horn three feet long projecting from the middle of the forehead. They say that it is impossible to capture this animal alive.'
The horn of the unicorn was once used to detect the presence of poison in the food of kings. Just a single touch, it was said, was sufficient to reveal a life-threatening ingredient.
The unicorn's horn was endowed with magical and medicinal properties, according to the Greek physician Ctesias in the 4th century BC. Dust filed from it was an antidote to all poisons and 'deadly drugs', and it would purify the water in a well, especially if used to trace the sign of the cross. Horns reputed to have such powers, probably the tusks of narwhals, were prized in the courts of Renaissance Europe.
Although fierce, the unicorn was believed to love purity – and so could be tamed by a virgin. Symbolically its greatest enemy was the lion.
In Christian art that depicts both the unicorn and the Virgin Mary the horn is said by scholars to symbolize the penetration of her body by the Holy Spirit. In secular representations of scenes from mythology the female embodiment of chastity is often depicted riding in a chariot pulled by unicorns.
The Greek Physiologus was specific in its instructions. In the text headed 'How it is captured', the advice ran thus: 'A virgin is placed before it and it springs into the virgin's lap and she warms it with love and carries it off to the palace of kings.' The unicorn's undoing, according to Leonardo da Vinci, was its lust, which made it forget to be fierce. Whatever the truth, the unicorn became a symbol of chastity – of both men and women – because only a pure woman could tame the 'horn' of male desire.
The capture of the unicorn, for which a beautiful, naked virgin had to be tied to a tree in order to attract the beast, may have been based on a trick used by Indian hunters in which they used a monkey to lure a rhinoceros, which could then be captured. It became the allegory of the Holy Hunt, in which Christ is the unicorn who is attracted by the Virgin Mary and killed to save the world's sinners.
THE LION AND THE UNICORN
The contest between these two great beasts is thought to symbolize the triumph of summer over spring, and can be traced back to at least 3500 BC. The nursery rhyme written in the early 18th century probably refers to the amalgamation of the arms of Scotland with those of England following the accession of James I (James VI of Scotland) in 1603.
The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown;
The lion beat the unicorn
All around the town.
Some gave them white bread,
And some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum cake
And drummed them out of town.
… Or so it was written on outlines of remote parts of the world by early mapmakers. Dragons bad and good feature in myth and legend all over the world.
Dragoons were originally mounted infantrymen, so called because in the 18th century they used weapons called 'dragons'. These carbines got their name from the burst of flame they produced when fired.
With the head and horns of a ram, a lion's forelimbs, a scaly reptilian body (like that of a crocodile) and an eagle's claws, the dragon depicted in white glaze on the Ishtar Gate in ancient Babylon is one of the oldest known renditions of this mythical creature. From it evolved the familiar fearsome animal with sharp talons, forked tongue, glaring eyes (often glowing with a red reflection from the treasures it guarded), flared nostrils breathing fire capable of destroying anything in its path – even entire countries – and a thunderous voice.
As a symbol of power, the dragon was adopted by the Romans as an icon on their standard, and it is the association with invading Romans that is thought to have led King Henry VII, who was of Welsh descent, to use it on his coat of arms.
Dragons of old were so omnipotent that they could control not only the weather – bringing about eclipses by swallowing the sun or moon – but also the destiny of humankind. In many cultures dead men were thought to become dragons, and there was also a belief that after death the souls of the wicked would be left to the mercy of a fire-breathing dragon. When the dead were buried with their earthly treasures, it was dragons who guarded this bounty. Another belief was that, if planted, dragons' teeth would grow into an army of men.
The Greek word drakos, meaning 'eye', is the root of the dragon's name, and ties in with the idea that the dragon is a guardian of treasure. In the Christian tradition, however, it is often interchangeable with the serpent. So in Revelation, in St Michael's battle, 'the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent that was called the Devil …'
DRAGON LANGUAGE
Many current words and phrases maintain a link with the mythological beast, including:
To chase the dragon – to smoke opium or heroin. The fumes produced look like dragons' breath.
Flying dragon – a colloquial term for a meteor.
To sow dragon's teeth – to do something intended to quell strife, but which in fact foments it even more.
Dragon's blood – a reddish-brown resin with a spicy fragrance extracted from palms such as Calamus draco. Jilted lovers traditionally throw it on the fire and chant a rhyme in order to restore their broken dreams.
Dragon's teeth – anti-tank obstacles used in World War II.
Heroes of old, both saints and knights, made their reputations by fighting and killing dragons, thus symbolizing the triumph of good over evil.
In Mesopotamian myth, the heavens and the earth were created when the dragon Tiamat was killed by the king of the gods.
Of all the dragon conquerors St George is the exemplar. Having battled victoriously against the Saracens, so the story goes, he travelled to Libya where a dragon was terrorizing the local population and demanding a virgin every day. Sabra, the king's daughter, was about to be sacrificed to the monster when St George arrived on his white charger. Having fought and wounded the dragon he attached it to Sabra's girdle; she led it into the city where the citizens disposed of it.
How St George became England's patron saint is a mystery. In the 12th century, the crusaders were probably the first to call for his help in battle, but his position was most likely secured in 1350 when Edward III founded the Order of the Garter in his name.
In days when knights were bold it was a supreme act of chivalry – indeed the only means of achieving the highest rank – to slay a dragon. A 17th-century ballad, The Dragon of Wantley, parodied the many medieval romances that described their gallantry to tell the story of a heroic lawyer who challenged the church's excessive demands for tithes in Wharncliffe, near Sheffield. In it, Sir More of More Hall (the lawyer) takes on the task of fighting the dragon of Wantley (Wharncliffe), which has been killing cattle and devouring forests and even houses. His promised reward is a 16-year-old maiden with a lovely smile and 'hair as black as a sloe'. The anonymous poet paints a vivid picture of his foe:
This dragon had two furious wings
Each one upon each shoulder,
With a sting in his tail as long as a flail,
Which made him bolder and bolder,
He had long claws, and in his jaws,
Four and forty teeth of iron …'
Essentially benign, unlike their western counterparts, the dragons of the East were believed to control different aspects of the world. Their ancient powers are remembered in the dragon dances that still take place at Chinese New Year.
Wang Fu, a Chinese philosopher of the Han Dynasty (206 BC – 220 AD) painted a vivid portrait of the eastern dragon. It had a complex make up – a camel's head with stag's horns, an elephant's tusks, demon's eyes and cow's ears. Its triple-jointed body, ending in a serpent's tail, had a clam's belly, a carp's scales, an eagle's claws and the feet of a tiger. Of the creature's 117 scales, he said, 81 are imbued with yang, and 36 with yin, making its good influences outweigh the bad, and ensuring that it is essentially male, rather than female.
The dragon symbolized imperial authority, and was held in highest esteem during the Qing Dynasty (1644–1912). Everything used by the emperor was given a dragon epithet – he slept on a dragon bed, was rowed in a dragon boat and sat on the dragon throne. When he died, it was said, 'The dragon has ascended to heaven.'
To the Japanese, dragons are by no means totally benign. Some are believed to demand the annual sacrifice of a virgin. The Dragon King of Japanese legend dwells beneath the ocean protected by a retinue of sea serpents, fishes and sea monsters.
To the ancients, the most important role of eastern dragons was their control of water, either in rivers, seas, lakes and wells, or as rain falling from the clouds. When angry they created storms, thunder and lightning but they could also bring about droughts by gathering up all the waters of a region into baskets. Because water was an essential life-giving element, the dragon was a symbol of fertility.
Not only dragons breathed fire. Flaming breath was also the weapon of the Chimera, a female monster with a lion's head, a goat's body and a serpent's tail.
The Chimera is described by Homer in his Iliad, where he tells how the hero Bellerophon kills the creature, 'an invincible inhuman monster, but divine in origin. She breathed deadly rage in searing fire.'
According to Hesiod, who talks of the Chimera in his Theogony written in the 8th century BC, her parents were Echidna, goddess of illness and disease, and Typhon, god of winter storms, whose union also gave issue to other monsters, including the Hydra and Cerberus (see page 58). Hesiod describes a swift-footed creature with three heads, one from each component creature, and portrays the gallant Bellerophon riding astride the winged horse Pegasus (see page 236).
'Chimera' has become a generic name for weird creatures and fanciful notions, and also for animal and plant hybrids.
The three-headed form of the Chimera may have symbolized the cold of winter: her fire-breathing lion head being frost, her goat head winter storms, and her serpentine head sickness. The monster's name is derived from the Greek words kheima, cold, and aera, 'air'.
Also known as the griffon, gryphon or gryps, the griffin, like the dragon, is a mythological guardian of treasure. This winged creature has also been long employed as a protective emblem.
The griffin is depicted on Minoan palaces on the island of Crete, where it is thought to act as a protective device. Much used in heraldry, since the 16th century it has been the badge of Grays Inn, one of the four Inns of Court in London that admit student lawyers wishing to become barristers.
The griffin has the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. Pliny, in his Natural History, writes of the struggle between the griffins and the Arimaspi, 'a people noted for having one eye in the middle of their forehead'. There was, he records, '… a continual battle between the Arimaspi and griffins in the vicinity of the latter's mines. The griffin,' he continues, 'is a type of wild beast with wings, as is commonly reported, which digs gold out of tunnels. The griffins guard the gold and the Arimaspi try to seize it, each with remarkable greed.'
While female griffins were winged, the males were armed with spikes in place of wings. A variant of the griffin was the hyppogriff, which had a horse's body and an eagle's wings.
Griffins were renowned in Greek mythology for being the enemies of horses. They were also reputed to be responsible for pulling either the chariot of the sun across the sky each day or the chariot of the goddess Nemesis, the avenger of wrongdoing.
Companions of the wine god Dionysus (the Roman Bacchus), and attendant at his revels, the satyrs were sylvan demigods that were part man and part animal.
The condition known to psychologists as satyriasis describes a man who has an uncontrollable desire to have sex with as many women as possible.
Inhabitants of woods and forests, the satyrs had goats' legs, pointed ears, small horns and human faces with upturned noses. Their tails were those of either horses or goats. Their arms were human. Decked with ivy or vine wreaths, they were sensual and pleasure loving, spending their time sleeping, playing musical instruments such as the flute, and performing lascivious dances with the nymphs.
The leader of the satyrs was Pan. The god of herds, he played a seven-reed shepherd's pipe, the 'Pan pipes' (see page 101). Travellers were taught to beware of waking Pan should they find him sleeping in a lonely place in the hills. If he was angered in this way he could send them fearful nightmares or simply terrify them with his loud voice.
For good or ill (and mostly ill) snakes take on many different forms in stories from around the world. Some can fly, others live in water, and one is even large enough to embrace the earth.
A serpent that brought good fortune was the shahapet or 'serpent ghost'. Kept indoors to bring luck to a household in winter this Indian beast was driven out into the fields in spring to ensure an abundant harvest.
The ultimate symbol of evil, the Midgard Serpent or Jörmungandr, was the offspring of the trickster Loki and the sorceress Angur-boda, who also gave birth to Hel (the queen of the dead) and the Fenris Wolf (see page 239). Able to constrict and crush its victims, the venomous bite of the Midgard Serpent was deadly, even to the gods. The creature grew and grew and so, to combat its evil potential, Odin banished it to the depths of the sea. However it became so large that its body completely encircled the world.
The hornworm, whose existence was first reported in medieval times, was said to be a serpent with four horns. When it buried itself in sand only the horns could be seen; these were woven into a shining coronet, which the creature used to entice its prey. Apart from the fanciful crown and extra horns, this could be a description of a North American horned viper, an animal a traveller may well have encountered.
It is said that at Ragnarök, the day when the gods will perish, the serpent will be killed by Thor, god of thunder and the serpent's enemy. According to the prophesy, the serpent will escape its underwater confinement. Thor will manage to kill it with his magic hammer, but will himself be murdered by the creature's deadly venom.
Apophis (or Apop), so the Egyptians believed, existed in total darkness in the underworld, bound in chains. Many-coiled and sometimes depicted with a human head, Apophis was the enemy of the sun god, Ra. Every night the serpent was thought to devour the sun as Ra rode through the abyss. Symbolic of the struggle between light and dark, Apophis lost the battle every night and the sun's victory was celebrated with each new dawn.
A MISCELLANY OF MYTHOLOGICAL SERPENTS
Amphiptère – a winged serpent said to guard frankincense trees in Arabia.
Meshekenabec – a red-headed lake serpent with glistening scales and glowing eyes killed by the Great Hare of Algonquin legend.
Lindorm – a serpent-like Scandinavian beast with a leering mouth and cold, hypnotic eyes. Said to devour cattle.
On Niont – a huge horned serpent worshipped by the Huron Indians. Its horn could pierce mountains.
Wyvern – a winged serpent, a symbol of pestilence. A heraldic beast.
Amphisbaena – in Greek myth, a two-headed snake that terrorized the African desert: when one head was asleep the other was awake.
Of all the creatures with equine attributes, most famous are the centaurs of Greek mythology, some of whom formed part of the lascivious, abandoned retinue of Dionysus, the god of wine.
Were centaurs real? Pliny, the Roman naturalist, claimed to have seen a 'hippocentaur' embalmed in honey, which had been brought to Rome from Egypt.
Having the legs and lower bodies of horses, and the torsos, arms and heads of men, the centaurs were diverse in their nature. While, as exemplified by Chiron, the virtuous teacher of Achilles, they were famed for their wisdom as teachers and healers, they could also be violent and lustful and, when drunk, were liable to attack and rape women.
Various legends surround the centaurs' origin. The most popular says that they were born as a result of the union between the treacherous Ixion and a cloud, which Zeus, as punishment for Ixion's seductive behaviour, had formed in the shape of the goddess Hera. Another maintains that they sprang to life when Zeus, displaying his passion for Aphrodite, spilt some of his sperm.
Since their name means 'men who round up bulls', the centaurs are thought by scholars to be incarnations of the barbarous 'cowboys' of ancient Thessaly, in eastern Greece, who were renowned for their horsemanship as well as their lecherous behaviour.
In a famous incident involving the centaurs, their half-brother Pirithous, the king of the fabulous Lapiths, invited them to his wedding feast, where they drank too much wine. One drunken centaur insulted the bride and a fearsome battle ensued in which many centaurs lost their lives. The remaining few were exiled from Thessaly.
Many gods and goddesses are credited with taking on the forms of horses, animals long revered for their strength and usefulness. And horses are believed, in many traditions, to help pull the sun across the sky.
One day, so legend relates, the Muses were singing and playing on Mount Helicon but were making so much noise that Poseidon sent Pegasus to quell their merriment. On arriving at the top of the mountain, Pegasus had only to paw the ground to quell the noise. From his footprint sprang the Hippocrene fountain, the source of poetic inspiration.
Magical transformations are the stuff of mythology. To avoid the advances of Poseidon, the Greek sea god, the goddess Demeter transformed herself into a mare. But her efforts were in vain, for he turned himself into a stallion and as a result of their union they became parents to the magical winged black horse Arion. It was Arion who was later borrowed by Heracles in his labours.
Speed from fuel: The winged Pegasus is the logo of the Mobil corporation.
Most divine of all the mythical horses was Pegasus, believed to have been created from the blood shed from the snake-headed Medusa (see page 210) after her head was severed by Perseus. Tamed by Bellerophon, with the help of a bridle given to him by the goddess Athene, Pegasus helped the hero defeat the Chimera (see page 231). But later, when Bellerophon tried to ride the horse up to the top of Mount Olympus – in order to reach heaven – Pegasus threw his rider off. Pegasus was then commandeered by Zeus to fetch and carry the thunderbolts with which he attacked earth's mortal inhabitants.
Nowhere in the ancient world was the bull more sacred than on the island of Crete, where the legend of the Minotaur arose. With a man's body and a bull's head, this giant creature fed on human flesh.
The bull was the Cretan symbol of fertility – its strength and sexuality were believed to be concentrated in its horns. The Spanish bullfight almost certainly evolved from the bull-leaping rituals of ancient Crete.
In ancient Crete, goes the story, Pasiphaë, wife of King Minos of Crete, fell in love with a white bull, which appeared from the sea as a sign from Poseidon (ruler of the oceans) of Minos's sovereignty. To seduce the creature she hid herself inside a hollow wooden cow, covered with hide, which had been made for her by the cunning craftsman Daedalus. Together they wheeled it into the pasture where the bull was kept – and so the Minotaur was conceived and born.
To conceal his shame, Minos kept the Minotaur in a labyrinth at Knossos – which was also designed and made by Daedalus. Here the cannibalistic beast was regularly fed on the bodies of seven maidens and seven youths, all brought as tribute from Athens, which Minos had previously defeated in war, and left to wander the labyrinth's paths unaware of their fate. Present for the third of these 'sacrifice sessions' was Theseus, the son of King Aegeus of Athens, who planned to kill the creature with the help of Minos's daughter Ariadne. To prevent Theseus getting lost as he retraced his path through the maze, Ariadne gave him a skein of thread to mark his route, as well as the sword with which he performed his heroic feat.
The Minotaur was used as a symbol on the standard of one of the Roman legions.
A pot-bellied man, short in stature, the elephant-headed, one-tusked Ganesha is the Hindu god of prosperity and good fortune. How his strange appearance came about is the subject of many stories.
Although considered lazy and gluttonous, Ganesha is believed to be able to vanquish any obstacle he encounters. To accomplish this he rides on a mouse, who represents the power of the intellect to find its way through the most intricate problem and is always alert and active.
Among Ganesha's notable features are a red body, a pot belly, a curved trunk, wide ears and four hands, one of which holds a rosary. His head is white. Why an elephant's head? One story tells how his mother, Parvati, showed off her son to the god Sani (the evil-eyed one), but when Sani glanced at the boy his head ignited and was burnt to ashes. On the advice of the god Brahma, Parvati replaced the head with whatever she could find – which turned out to be an elephant's head.
The luck-bringing power of the god Ganesha is traditionally invoked by Hindus at the beginning of journeys and important tasks, and explains why his image is often included on the opening pages of students' notebooks.
And why one tusk? Ganesha was guardian of his parents' house, where he stood on duty outside the entrance to Shiva's room. When the hero Rama tried to enter the room, Ganesha tried to stop him, but Rama hurled an axe at Ganesha and severed one of his tusks. Or it may have been that, in his anger, Ganesha tore out one of his tusks and hurled it at the moon – which is how, in Hindu mythology, the waxing and waning of the moon is explained.
Universally revered – and feared – the wolf takes on massive form and monstrous powers in ancient tales, especially those of Scandinavia. The Fenris Wolf even had the earth's destiny in its sights.
At Ragnarök, the twilight of the gods, the wolf will break free of his chains, join in battle against the gods and devour the great ruler Odin and with him the sun.
A huge monster in the form of a wolf, Fenris (or Fenrir) was not only strong but invulnerable. The gape of his jaws was so large that it reached between earth and heaven. Warned by an oracle that the Fenris Wolf, together with the Midgard Serpent, would be instrumental in the destruction of the earth, the gods decided that it must be kept under control. Since it quickly snapped every 'normal' rope used to tie it up, it was to be kept instead on a cord made by dwarfs and composed of six 'impossible' threads: the noise of a cat's footfall, the beards of women, the roots of a mountain, the sensibilities of a bear, the breath of fish, and the spittle of birds.
This confinement was not achieved without incident. Suspicious of what was to happen, the wolf insisted that if he was to be tied up, one of the gods would first have to put his hand in the animal's mouth. Only Tyr, the god of war, dared to do so – and lost a hand in the process – but the creature was successfully bound to a rock, called Gioll, with a sword clamped between his teeth to prevent him from biting.
WOLF FORMS
Many other mythological tales feature wolves:
• A she-wolf tended and fostered Romulus and Remus, the twin founders of Rome.
• Hecate, the Greek goddess of the crossroads and the wilderness, was believed to take the form of a wolf.
• A wolf symbol was emblazoned on the shield of the huntress Artemis.
• In German legend, the Devil is said to have made the wolf's head from a stump of wood, its heart from stone and its breast from roots.
• Unbaptized children, says Finnish legend, wander the world in the shape of wolves.
The sweet singing of the Sirens was enough to lure sailors to disaster. These maidens – part human, part bird – were resisted by Odysseus and Jason, two great heroes of mythology.
When they heard the Sirens' beautiful melodies, sung from rocks off the Italian coast, sailors were doomed, it was said, because they were driven to steer their ships on to the rocks, or to jump into the sea and drown. Or they could be so besotted by the sound of the seductresses that they forgot everything – including food – and starved to death. Consequently the Sirens' island home was 'piled with boneheaps of men now rotted away'.
In the story of Jason and the Argonauts, the hero is saved from the Sirens' lure with the help of Orpheus, whose playing, reputed to be so sweet that it 'charmed the stones and trees to dance or to gather round him' outclassed that of the evil maidens.
So how to resist the Sirens' lure? In the Odyssey, Homer tells how Odysseus was warned by Circe that any man listening to the Sirens, the 'enchanters of all mankind' had no prospect of coming home and 'delighting his wife and little children'. On her advice he ordered his men to stuff their ears with beeswax to prevent them from hearing the music. Odysseus, determined to hear the song, had himself tied to the ship's mast, so that he would be able to hear the Sirens' strains without steering or swimming to his death, though Circe warned, 'if you supplicate your men and implore them to set you free, then they must tie you fast with even more lashings'.
SIREN MYTHS, SYMBOLS AND MEANINGS
• In the Middle Ages, Sirens were commonly thought of as the souls of the dead with a malevolent envy of the living.
• Animals belonging to the order Sirenia, which include the manatee, are named for the Sirens.
• A siren is an instrument used to measure the frequency of vibrations in a musical note. It was named by the French physicist Charles Cagniard de la Tour.
• The two-toned siren call was used in World War II to warn of impending air raids, and to sound the all clear. The wartime leader Winston Churchill was renowned for favouring the all-in-one siren suit, originally designed to be pulled on quickly when taking cover in air raid shelters at night.
• A Siren is the logo of the Starbucks coffee corporation.
Its name means 'like 30 birds' – a tribute to the size and power of the Simurgh, a bird said to be so old that it has not only seen the universe destroyed three times, but possesses all the knowledge of the ages.
Legend has it that the touch of the Simurgh's wing can heal even the most horrendous wounds.
The Simurgh's home is on the branches of the Tree of Knowledge. When it alights, so it is said, the sound of its wings is like thunder and the wind created by its wings blows the seeds of the Tree (the seeds of every plant that has ever existed) all over the world, so bringing all kinds of valuable plants to the earth's human inhabitants. The Persian 11th-century epic The Shahnama tells of the Simurgh having 'energy from the falcon, power of flight from the Huma [phoenix], a long neck from the ostrich and a feathery collar from the ring dove …'
The 12th-century Persian author Farid al-Din Attar features the Simurgh in his allegory The Parliament of Birds, in which it represents ultimate spiritual unity. He describes it as:
… Truth's last flawless jewel, the light
In which you will be lost to mortal sight,
Dispersed to nothingness until once more
You find in Me the selves you were before.
In the poem, thousands of birds, under the leadership of the hoopoe, go on a pilgrimage in search of the Simurgh, during which they have to pass through the valleys of love, understanding, independence and detachment, unity, astonishment, poverty and, finally, nothingness. Lessons are learned from crossing each of the valleys and confronting the challenges they present. The story ends when 30 of the birds – the only survivors of the great expedition – realize that the Simurgh is actually their own transcendent totality.
Herons, hummingbirds and woodpeckers are among the many birds that appear in myth and legend, often in human form.
On 21 October 1492, Christopher Columbus wrote in his journal of 'little birds … so different from ours it is a marvel'. Huitzilopochitli, the 'hummingbird of the south' was, to the Aztecs, a god of sun and war. All warriors slain in battle, according to Aztec tradition, rise to the sky and orbit the sun for four years. They then become hummingbirds, feeding on flowers in paradise.
The heron comes to life in the legend of Scylla, daughter of the Greek ruler Nisus, who, out of love for Minos, king of Crete, betrayed her father. As a result, Minos conquered Nisus's kingdom, but having done so, reneged on his engagement to Scylla in disgust at her treachery, and had her tied to the prow of a warship. However the gods of Olympus took pity on her and turned her into a heron. Her father Nisus, who had been killed in the battle, became a sea eagle and continually pursues his daughter, seeking revenge.
The Lydian carpenter Polytechnos was turned into a green woodpecker by an angry Zeus – after Polytechnos had been tricked by his wife into eating the flesh of his own child in revenge for raping her sister. In another myth it was said that the woodpecker ruled the earth until Zeus stole his sceptre.
Among native Americans the woodpecker is thought to protect children because of its habit of keeping its own young in such safety. Woodpeckers with red heads are said to have discovered fire by boring into wood.
HUMMINGBIRD TALES
The hummingbird features in many other stories:
• The bird was sent from the underworld to find the sunlit world where men could live. (Mojave)
• After losing his bet with the sun a demon is blinded and in anger spews out lava from the earth. When the earth catches fire the hummingbird saves it by gathering the clouds and producing rain. (Pueblo)
• The hummingbird is really the sun in disguise; he is constantly trying to seduce a beautiful woman, who is the moon. (Mayan)
• That the hummingbird is so small is a punishment from the Great Spirit for its destruction of flowers. (In its original form it was big and white.) Its bright colours are the consolation granted for its diminutive proportions. (Navajo)
There are lots of good reasons for children to behave, not least the fear of weird animals (with weirder names) or little people with animal features that are coming to terrorize them.
The boggart, a type of Celtic hobgoblin, is a mischievous creature that often has fur, a tail or other animal accoutrements. Badly behaved children, especially in Yorkshire and Lancashire, are still threatened with being thrown into the 'boggart hole'. In its most evil form, which can haunt adults as well as children, the boggart – also called a shriker, barguest or trash – is a death omen that appears in the form of a white cow or horse, or sometimes as a black or white dog with massive paw pads, a shaggy coat and glaring eyes the size of saucers. Are boggarts real? In 1825, so one documented account relates, a Manchester tradesman was attacked by a huge headless dog, which put its feet on his shoulders and pushed him all the way home.
Boggarts can be helpful – they are reputed to assist with everything from housework to reaping and gathering the harvest. But when annoyed they will exert their revenge by making milk and cream curdle and by banging kitchen pots and pans together at night, making so much noise that no one can sleep.
The bug-a-boo, also called the bodach or bugbear, will, it's said, kidnap naughty children. It comes down the chimney with no warning. Like the boggart, it probably gets its name from the Middle English word bogge, meaning 'terror'. When called bugbears they are thought, literally, to take on the shape of a bear and will actually eat their victims. They are sent, goes the old English proverb, 'to scare babes'.
Life sprang, so Eastern tradition relates, from the lotus, the 'fairest flower'. Countless other stories, many linked to creation and fertility, are associated with the lotus – and with other plants of the same name.
The Buddha is often shown seated on a lotus: to Buddhists the flower is thought to have originated specifically to announce the Buddha's birth.
The ancient Egyptians visualized that the world's supreme creator sprang from the blue lotus (Nelumbo caerulea), a type of water lily. Specifically, the sun god Horus (the falcon-headed deity) was believed to be reborn each morning from the water, having spent the previous night floating in the closed flower. As it opened its petals at dawn, the god emerged.
To the Greeks the lotus was a different tree, Zizyphus lotus, a type of buckthorn related to the jujube tree. The lotus eaters, who sat beneath such trees in Lotus Land were, according to Homer, induced to forget all about reality. Their only desire was for a life of luxury and idleness.
In ancient Indian religion the flower represents the womb of creation, from which all things are born. The goddess Padma, wife of the lotus-navelled god Vishnu, is also thought to have arisen from a lotus flower. She is often shown standing on a lotus being sprayed with water from elephants' trunks.
The myth expands. In the Hindu creation story Vishnu produces a lotus with 1000 golden petals on which the creator Brahma sits. From this flower, mountains arise and rivers and seas are made to flow.
In the Chinese Sacred Lake of Lotuses each soul is thought be represented by an individual lotus flower. After death, a soul is received by a lotus and exists within it, the subsequent health of the flower reflecting the sin or piety of the departed. The promise for the devout is that the lotus will open immediately after death, releasing the soul to the presence of the almighty Buddha.
To fulfil his wish for everlasting gloom the unlucky youth Cyparissus was, according to legend, turned into a cypress tree. Other trees are also believed to be the living embodiments of people from the past.
Beloved of the god Apollo, the beautiful Cyparissus son of Telephus was given by him a sacred deer as a love token. The creature became the boy's constant companion, until a tragic accident occurred. One day, while the deer lay sleeping in a shady place amongst undergrowth, Cyparissus threw his javelin, which by unlucky accident hit and killed the deer. Grief-stricken, Cyparissus asked the gods that he be doomed to a future of eternal misery. So he was changed into a cypress tree, which, because it exudes droplets of sap from its trunk, has become a symbol of sorrow.
In another tree story linked with Apollo, the nymph Daphne, fleeing from his attentions, prayed to the gods for assistance. They answered her supplications by turning her into a laurel (bay). Finding that he was no longer touching soft flesh but bark, Apollo crowned his head with the leaves and the tree became sacred to him.
When their brother Phaeton died, the Heliades, the daughters of the sun god Helios, were so grief stricken that, out of compassion for their plight, the gods turned them into motionless, 'amberoozing' trees beside the River Po. Historians are ambiguous about exactly which trees these are, but opinion favours the black poplar over the alder.
MORE TREE TALES
• Overcome with shame at giving birth to a centaur, the Greek goddess Philyra turned herself into a linden tree.
• Having been bewitched by Aphrodite, and then seduced her own father, Myrrha was converted by shame into a myrrh tree. Her son Adonis emerged from the tree.
• As a reward for unwittingly offering hospitality to Zeus the aged couple Philemon and Baucis were turned, after their death, into an oak and a linden growing next to each other so that they would never be parted.
• The beautiful nymph Pitys was loved by both Pan and Boreas, the north wind. When she chose Pan, Boreas blew her over a cliff. Gaia, the earth goddess, took pity on her and turned her into a pine tree. When the north wind blows through the tree you can, it's said, still hear her weeping.
Among the world's most beautiful flowers are some long thought to be mortals in disguise. The stories live on in the symbolism of these favourite blooms.
Psychologists use the term 'narcissism' to describe excessive self-admiration.
Provided he never saw his own image – it was prophesied by Tiresias the seer – the beautiful boy Narcissus would live a long and happy life. When out hunting one day (having, incidentally, spurned the love of the nymph Echo) he stopped to quench his thirst in a stream. There he saw and fell in love with his own reflection. So spellbound that he was unable to move, he pined to death and was changed by the gods into his eponymous flower 'with tufts of white about the button crowned'.
The flower of the myth related here may not have been the hyacinth we know today but the red Martagon lily. This is bound up with the belief that Hyacinth's last cry was 'Ai, ai,' words that can be seen as marks on the flower's petals.
The hyacinth sprang, it is said, from the blood of Apollo in his remorse for the death of the boy of the same name. Hyacinth fell victim to the jealous rage of Zephyrus (god of the west wind) who, when Hyacinth was playing quoits with Apollo, blew so powerfully on Apollo's iron plaything that it struck Hyacinth and killed him.
Blood shed in death led to the creation of the pheasant's eye or Adonis flower. The boy Adonis (born from a myrrh tree) was loved by Aphrodite. When Adonis was killed by a wild boar the goddess was so sorrowful that she made a red flower spring from his blood. The gods agreed to let Adonis spend half the year on earth and half in the underworld, a story that symbolizes the annual dying of vegetation in autumn and its return in spring.